Publisher Description
Said Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as “a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain.” His new collection of stories?some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories?are set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to fans of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles?a son’s fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction?even as they are battered by the larger, often invisible, economic and political forces of American society. Searing, intimate, often slyly funny, and always marked by a deep imaginative sympathy, American Estrangement is a testament to our addled times. It will cement Sayrafiezadeh’s reputation as one of the essential twenty-first-century American writers.
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About Said Sayrafiezadeh
Said Sayrafiezadeh was born in Brooklyn and raised in Pittsburgh. He is the author of a memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, and two story collections story collections, American Estrangement and Brief Encounters with the Enemy. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and a Cullman Center Fellowship. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Granta, the New York Times Magazine, and McSweeney’s. He teaches at New York University and Hunter College.
About the Narrators
Qarie Marshall is an Earphones Award–winning narrator. He has narrated more than thirty series for the Discovery Channel, TLC, and the BBC, as well as providing the in-flight programming for Virgin Atlantic Airlines and BBC radio plays. He has voiced over eighty video games for the PlayStation and Xbox and was a guest voice on Comedy Central’s Drawn Together. He was made an associate artist of the Purple Rose Theatre in 2007.
Pete Cross is an Earphones Award–winning narrator. He holds a BA in theater from the University of Toledo and an MFA in acting from the California Institute of the Arts. His experience on stage includes Carnegie Hall, and he has also acted in film. He has served on the faculty at Cal Arts and with Aquila Morong Studio in Hollywood. He has coached for film and theatrical productions and continues to work with private clients all over the world.
David Bendena is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
Mark Owen is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. He was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind’s hideout, where he witnessed bin Laden’s death. Mark Owen’s name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in No Easy Day have been changed for their security.
Suehyla El-Attar Young is an actress and writer based in Atlanta, Georgia. She dabbled in radio for a bit, working with several well-known stations as a morning news personality and DJ. Eventually, she returned to acting, on stage and in film. She has nurtured both crafts of acting and writing, working with local companies such as Theatre du Reve, Synchronicity Theatre, the Alliance Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company as dramaturge, actress, and playwright on several projects.